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Because of this, the current obsession with uncontactable websites is driving me up the wall. I don't want a telephone number, a call-me function, a forum, a comment box, a shoutbox or a postal address. I want to be able to contact someone via email or through an online private contact form. Even major blogging sites don't provide contact facilities on their member's blogs - simple code which could be implemented for everyone easily.
Even worse is when the only email address available is for the webmaster of a large company. It's unlikely that visitors want to talk to the webmaster, they would far prefer the email address of a secretary or similar who can route it to the appropriate person.
Rant over...
ask a question about a product
Extended rant....
There are many email extractor programs harvesting email addresses on websites so in short order every email address on your sites will be getting tons of spam and attached file viruses too.
For example, the email addresses on my sites (which are slowly getting deleted) get an estimated 1,000 spams vs 1 legit email per day.
Contact forms also get mostly spams with automated or manual form replies giving the spammers url. In fact, it is rare to get a completed and legit contact form. Most all the time even involving the rare legit ones the sender fails to complete all the fields.
[edited by: trader at 3:19 pm (utc) on Sep. 1, 2007]
The percentage of legit calls vs all the sales solicitations was extremely poor and not worth it.
(The protocols connect to the series of tubes)
-From a MARKETING standpoint, they don't want you to send email. They want to get you on the phone.This can be because they are more familiar with nailing a sale via phone or are just not real Internet savvy - in either case it's a business decision.
-Same as above, but simple fear of the Internet because they don't fully understand it.
- The spam issue. "I want to keep it simple, just put my email on the web page." Then a year later, "I want to keep it simple, all I get is spam - eliminate my email from the web page, let them call me."
When a contact form is suggested, it usually winds up like this:
Contact forms also get mostly spams with automated or manual form replies giving the spammers url.
Producing the same result. I'm sorry, the above statement is absolutely, positively not true - if you're getting spam URL's and junk via a contact form, whoever set it up for you is not properly screening the input data. Secondly, any auto-responses from a contact form should NOT reflect a live email address, they should have a reply-to of a non-monitored no-reply address. If properly set up, a contact form processor should not allow a single tidbit of junk to go through, which quickly discourages spammers from adding your site to their junk-form list.
The bottom line, in my opinion, is the number one reason those sites have no contact information for you is because they have put their faith in web developers who operate in an industry without standards and set them up for a fall. They set them up incorrectly, got a wave of spam or nothing at all, and would rather cut out the annoyance than use it to it's fullest potential. Rather sad!
